


i wish i knew a better way

by advisortotheadvisor



Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Could maybe be read as ship if you squint, Gen, i personally ship carl and monty but i just didnt feel like dealing with a romantic relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:40:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25481785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/advisortotheadvisor/pseuds/advisortotheadvisor
Summary: The two of them had a routine, a cycle, a dance, but suddenly Monty didn't know the steps.(Or, Monty has a conversation with someone he was friends with once upon a time.)
Relationships: Carl Karl & Monty Monogram
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	i wish i knew a better way

_Creeeak._

Monty winced as the floorboard squealed beneath him, giving away his position. He had tracked his prey down by satellite and security cameras, disabled the high-tech security system, fought his way through a dozen robot security guards, and he was bested by a single squeaky floorboard. What a rookie mistake. He was too easily distracted.

(But then again, this particular villain always had a habit of distracting him.)

“Hi, Monty,” Carl greeted cheerfully from the balcony Monty had been seconds away from stepping onto. The redhead didn't turn around, gaze still fixated on the city below them and the dreary gray clouds hanging in the sky, but it didn't matter. It would never be anyone besides Monty.

Monty sighed and accepted the fact that his cover had been blown before joining Carl on the balcony. He had to admit, it was a pretty nice view.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” Monty joked and Carl made a sound that was somewhere between a snort and a laugh. It was the same sound he would make a lifetime ago, when he was still an intern and was trying not to laugh out loud at Major Monogram’s mistakes.

Carl's cheap black cape whipped in the wind and Monty was surprised by how much and how little had changed. It might have only been a couple years, but it felt like eons had passed.

The fact that Carl was technically evil probably contributed to Monty's skewed sense of time.

Nobody (not even the inventor), knew why, but, a couple months after what OWCA had dubbed the “Africa Incident”, the Regood-inator wore off. Or maybe it never fully worked in the first place. Either way, Carl was evil again and hell-bent on destroying OWCA.

Monty had been sent to track him down the first time since, despite the fact that Carl wasn't much of a threat physically, he could still hack into OWCA's mainframe and steal information, jam signals, and cause all kinds of trouble. Carl had apparently wised up since his last foray into villainy, because he immediately went into hiding and attacking OWCA remotely. It had taken Monty almost three weeks to track down and capture him.

Since then, Monty was always sent to apprehend the former intern since Carl had a knack for escaping prison and Monty had a knack for finding him. And in every face-to-face confrontation, Monty was surprised at how much had stayed the same.

Carl still looked the same, obviously, with the exception of the black cape he always wore, but it was more than that. He still _acted_ the same. He hummed peppy pop songs when they fought and made bad jokes at the wrong times and was apparently still taking college classes online.

Monty kind of hated it honestly.

He wished that the Ultimate Evil-inator had twisted Carl into some cartoonish caricature of “evil" with ridiculous plots, that way he could believe that the Ultimate Evil-inator was guiding all of Carl actions. But life wasn't that simple, and now Monty had to wonder if this whole. . .situation was caused solely by a misfired inator, or if Carl had always been capable of villainy and the Ultimate Evil-inator just brought it to light.

The faint squeal of metal against metal brought Monty's attention back down to earth and the man next to him. Carl had rocked forward against the balcony, causing the aged metal to squeak and reminding Monty of what he came here to do.

“I'm going to have to arrest you,” Monty said casually, leaning against the barrier separating them from the street below. The wind sliced through his gray hoodie like a knife.

“I’ll escape,” Carl returned, his tone as nonchalant as Monty's.

It was an endless cycle, a dance Monty had long learned the steps to. Carl would try to destroy OWCA, Monty would swoop in and stop him. Carl would be blasted with the Regood-inator, but it wouldn't last. It never did. He'd escape and the cycle would repeat.

(But that second-to-last step always tripped Monty up. There would be a bloom of hope that maybe the Regood-inator would work this time, that Carl would come back to their side. But no matter how many tweaks and adjustments Doofenshmirtz made, it never stuck.

That bloom of hope had started to turn into a seed of doubt. Maybe this wasn't the Ultimate Evil-inator any more, maybe this was all Carl.)

“You don't have to do this,” Monty said, a plea to the cold, damp air between them.

“Still trying to talk me into coming back?” Carl said. His voice was teasing, playful, but not mocking, like the past two years hadn't happened. Like they were still friends.

“We still need you-"

“Need me for what?” Carl asked sharply. All of the mirth in his voice disappeared so quickly, Monty wondered if he'd imagined it being there in the first place. “The great OWCA needs me to be Monogram's unpaid lackey again? Thanks but no thanks.”

And suddenly, Carl had changed the steps of the dance. Monty had given the same speech every time, but Carl had never responded to it before. There was nothing Monty could do but let him lead. “Is that really what this is about? You not being paid?”

“That isn't-" Carl tried to interrupt, but Monty was already spinning off on another train of thought.

“If you had just talked to my dad-"

“I am NOT-"

“We could have negotiated-"

“THIS ISN'T ABOUT MONEY!” Carl shouted, drowning out Monty's voice. Silence reigned afterwards, as if to compensate for the abrupt change in volume.

“So what is-"

Carl barreled on without acknowledging Monty, either anticipating his question, or not caring what it was. “This is about the fact that I gave _everything_ to that stupid organization, and they didn't care. I almost dropped out of high school because being there for the agency was more important than my classes. I pulled all-nighters and was on-call 24/7 and I was still just _expendable_ to them.”

“But-"

“And it wasn't even just me!” Carl continued without giving Monty a chance for a rebuttal, getting more worked up as he spoke. “The animal agents were just as overworked as I was. They got pulled away for every ridiculous “evil" scheme and _still_ got paid pennies and were denied vacations and treated like crap.” He took a deep breath here, and the anger seemed to drain out of him and dissipate into the wind. “I used to think I could just change OWCA from within, but I was wrong. It needs to be burned to the ground.”

There was a calm, grim determination in those words, a persistence that Monty knew he couldn't fight, but he couldn't just let those statements hang in the air, unchallenged.

“C'mon, it’s not like we forced you, or any of the agents, to work for OWCA.”

At that, Carl whirled toward him, meeting his eyes for the first time. “I was FOURTEEN!” And immediately the anger was flaring up again like the embers of a fire suddenly roaring to life. “If you ask a fourteen-year-old ‘wanna work for a secret spy organization?’, of course he's going to say yes! As for the agents, most of them were born in OWCA. They were raised and trained to be agents, it’s all they know. What exactly were they supposed to do?”

“I don't know,” Monty said, not too proud to admit defeat, but stubborn enough to keep pushing. “But do you really think this is the right way to do it?”

Carl looked at him in a way that was impossible to read, and Monty felt like the seconds spent in silence could have lasted for an eternity. But then that eternity was broken by Carl's laugh. It wasn't the cruel, gloating laughter that most villains used. It was almost. . .genuine. Like Carl had figured out an enormous joke while Monty was still left in the dark.

“What's so funny?” Monty couldn't help but ask.

“Do you think I’d put all this work into destroying OWCA if I thought there was a better way?” Carl asked rhetorically.

They lapsed back into silence with the unspoken understanding that neither would be able to change the other's viewpoint. They both returned to the railing at the edge of the balcony and maybe Monty imagined it, but it seemed like Carl had shuffled a little closer.

“Do you ever miss…” _Me_ balanced on the edge of Monty's tongue. “…it?”

“Do I miss OWCA?” Carl asked. At Monty's confirming nod, Carl laughed a short, bitter laugh that didn't suit him. “Hell no.” There was a pause, and Carl looked contemplative, like he was actually thinking over Monty's question. “I don't miss working there but. . .I miss the agents. I miss not constantly being on the run.” Another pause. “I miss you.”

“I miss you too.” It was a rare admission of feelings and Monty thought that maybe he could use this, maybe he could finally get through to Carl. “It's not too late-"

“Isn't it though?” Carl asked, his voice still fragile with honesty. “Even if I stopped," (and they both knew he wouldn't because Carl didn't leave things unfinished, he fought tooth and nail for the things he wanted) “It’s not like OWCA will let me waltz in and take my job back.”

Monty sighed, but couldn't argue against that fact. Even if OWCA didn't arrest Carl, letting him back into their ranks would be unthinkable.

It was starting to drizzle now, and Monty could feel faint pinpricks of moisture on his face. A car rumbled by below and everything seemed gray. The sky above, the buildings around them, even Carl's face had taken on an ashen hue in the dim light.

“I'm sorry for the way I left,” Carl said abruptly. “Not for leaving, but. . .finding out your friend is “evil" from some intelligence report must've sucked.”

“It did,” Monty said bluntly. “Did you even think about the people you were leaving behind?”

Carl flinched, the movement making his cape shudder. “I did-"

“You could've at least said goodbye.”

Neither of them said anything else. There wasn't anything left to say.

Carl stepped back from the railing and took a deep breath like he was preparing for something and Monty could almost see the raw honesty being buried away, the armor of his cocky and confident persona replacing it. Then he turned and offered his wrists to Monty. “Let's get this over with.”

It took a minute for the cogs in Monty's mind to start working again, to understand what was going on. He pulled the cuffs out of his fedora and suddenly the dance was back, with Carl smiling smugly up at him as he shackled Carl's wrists like it was second nature.

He pushed Carl through the carcasses of the defeated robot guards and out of the old, dilapidated building that had been the villain's hideout for the past couple days. The rain started to pour down harder in the ten minutes they had to wait for OWCA's helicopter to arrive. A blustery wind made Carl's cape fly behind him and sent litter skittering across the ground as the helicopter landed. Monty pushed Carl toward the aircraft and a couple of the agents stepped out to take custody of the villain.

Carl, flanked by two towering bear agents, hesitated before stepping onto the helicopter. Monty would be staying behind to thoroughly search Carl's lab for any blueprints or plans, scan any tech for OWCA to replicate and dissect, and then to destroy it all. Carl turned back to Monty, something close to a smile playing on his lips.

“Hey, Monty,” he called, much to the displeasure of his guards, who wanted to get back to the headquarters as quick as possible.

“Yeah?” Monty said, ignoring the annoyed looks from the agents.

“Bye.” With that, Carl was ushered onto the helicopter, and the rotating of the blades threatened to blow off Monty's hat.

It took until the helicopter was a faint black speck in the sky for Monty to realize the meaning of Carl's parting words.

He'd finally gotten his goodbye.

**Author's Note:**

> a slight clarification: in this au, the ultimate Evil-inator works differently so carl just wants to tear down OWCA instead of taking over the tri-state area


End file.
